All That I Leave Behind (16 page)

At first, she’d politely listened to the woman at the other end. It had taken a while for the penny to drop, to realise what it was the woman was saying. She was ‘an old friend of your mother’s’. Could they meet for a coffee some place convenient for June? Maeve – the woman had cleared her throat and said, ‘Maeve with an “e”’ – had something that she thought June might like to have. Something of Mammy’s.

June’s first instinct had been to say ‘no’, that she didn’t want anything of Mammy’s. That, quite frankly, she’d rather die. ‘Do you have any idea,’ she wanted to ask Maeve, ‘what I’ve been through for the last ten years? Do you have any idea at all what you’re asking?’ She opened her mouth to say as much, but then stopped herself. Because, of course, she did want something of Mammy’s. Any tiny crumb, she’d reach out and grab it, because she wanted to know, to understand, to find an answer, no matter how much she tried to persuade herself otherwise. She needed to understand what she’d done to make Mammy leave like that. She needed to
know
.

And so, she found herself agreeing to meet Maeve at the Mont Clare hotel. ‘It’s a nice hotel, dear, quiet and out of the way. We won’t be disturbed.’

The morning had dragged by. June had felt she was wading through treacle, dragging her feet up and down the office, trying to pretend that she was filing so that Paddy, her boss, wouldn’t notice how distracted she was. At the dot of one, she’d grabbed her handbag and stuck her head around the office door. ‘Just popping out, Paddy,’ and she’d run before he could ask anything further.

She’d bustled around the corner of the maternity hospital, a little cluster of women on the steps, resting their huge bumps on their knees as they took in the sun. She passed them every day on her way to and from the office, and every time she did, she’d wondered if one day she might like to be there, on the steps, in a snuggly dressing gown, a baby in her belly. Once, it had seemed a faraway dream, but with Gerry on the scene, the idea had slowly been taking shape in her head. But now, it just seemed sinister, fraught with danger. She knew what mothers really did. She knew.

She’d passed Merrion Square, then shivered as she’d stepped out of the bright sunlight into the gloom of the hotel lounge. She’d hardly been able to make out anyone in the near-darkness of the hotel, but her stomach had heaved at the smell of the lunchtime bacon and cabbage. She should have brought her glasses, she’d thought. She was normally too vain to wear them, but she could have done with them as she’d squinted into the cavern of the lounge.

In the end, Maeve hadn’t been that hard to find, a dark twist of hair piled on her head, a nut-brown face with two eyes like currants pushed into dough above a button nose. She looked like one of those friendly dolls made of fabric, with buttons for eyes. She’d been sitting alone with a bowl of soup and a copy of
The Irish Times
in front of her. ‘I feel a little like a spy,’ she’d
chuckled, standing up to meet June.

June couldn’t bring herself to smile back. She managed to shake Maeve’s hand briefly then perched on the edge of the worn velvet banquette. No, thank you, she said, she wouldn’t have coffee or soup. She’d cleared her throat then, saying, ‘Maeve, I don’t mean to be rude but I’ve only got half an hour lunch break …’

‘Of course.’ Maeve had sat upright then, all business. ‘I’m sure you’re wondering why I suggested we meet.’

‘You know something about Mammy,’ June had said baldly. ‘What do you know?’ The question didn’t come out the way she’d meant it, and Maeve shrank back slightly.

‘Sorry,’ June had muttered. ‘It’s just, it’s hard after all this time.’

‘I know,’ Maeve had said. And when she didn’t add anything, June had blurted, ‘Where is she, Maeve?’

Maeve had shaken her head then, just slightly. ‘I’m afraid I can’t say. And not because I’m hiding anything,’ she added hastily. ‘I don’t honestly know, June. But I can tell you she’s safe.’

June had had to bite her tongue then, clenching her fists tight, trying to suppress the urge to stand up and yell, ‘
Safe
? Do you think I care whether or not she’s safe? After what she did?’ In that second, New June just melted away and in her place there was a desperate young girl, and June hated herself for it. For her weakness. ‘I know that she is – was – alive. She left word with Granny Kate in Donegal. I just want to understand, Maeve, that’s what it is.’ The statement was more like a whimper, and June had felt her eyes fill with tears. She took a hankie from her bag, dabbing at her eyes with it. ‘Sorry.’

Maeve had nodded silently and reached into her own handbag. June had flinched, as if the woman were reaching for a gun, but instead she’d pulled out a white envelope with June’s name on it. ‘Your Mammy wanted you to have this,’ she’d said. ‘Don’t read it now,’ she’d added hastily, placing a hand on June’s. ‘When you have some time. I think you’ll probably have some questions and I hope I’ll be able to answer some of them anyway. Give me a call then?’ And she’d got up, squeezing June’s shoulder. ‘And now, if you’ll excuse me, the number 45 bus is a rare bird and there’s one due any minute.’

And then she’d left, and June had sat there, looking at the fat white envelope, holding it in her shaking hands. And then she’d walked out of the hotel and into the glare of summer and had walked home to Haddington Road, ringing Paddy and telling him she wouldn’t be back after lunch, because she had a really bad headache. And she’d sat on the bed and composed herself, sitting up straight, hands folded in her lap. The envelope she’d placed in front of her on the bed and she’d stared at it until the writing on the front became a blur.

As she sat there, she could hear the sounds of the traffic outside, a child laughing, a siren far away near the canal, and it seemed strange to her that life could just be going on outside the window, that people could be going about their daily business, just like that, when her life had stopped. And the gap between her two lives, the one she could have had and the one she now faced, opened up in front of her. When she reached out a hand and grabbed the envelope, tearing it open so quickly that great, jagged lumps appeared at the top, it was as if she were standing outside of herself, looking at the girl with the two spots of pink on her cheeks, at the way she pulled out the wad of flimsy paper, held it in her hands, lips moving as she read the words, the way they always did when she read. Mary-Pat said it gave her the creeps, like she was some old nun saying her prayers, but it helped her to get the words into her head. It helped her to understand them better.

‘
My dear June, I don’t know where to begin. How to tell you about the past ten years and what they’ve been like for me
.’ She’d had to stop then, to look out the window and twist a lock of her hair into a tight, hard knot. What about what they were like for
me
, Mammy? What about that? When she’d looked back down, the letters had swum in front of her eyes. ‘I
just need to tell you that I never intended to leave you. Not for ever. I thought that you’d come with me, you see, and we’d all be together, but then … it didn’t work out like that. I had no choice, Junie. You have to believe me
.’ June had shaken her head then, unsure. There was no such thing as ‘no choice’, not really. Even she knew that.

‘
It’s very hot where I am. Hot and dry and there’s no rain for months at a time. The sun burns down day after day. You’d think it was Hell, if you didn’t know better, and sometimes I think it is. But it’s what I deserve, I suppose. It’s my punishment for running away. My penance. And I try to serve it as best I can. I’m helping mothers and little girls and it’s good work, June. Meaningful work. I feel that what I do makes a difference to another person …’

June had put the letter down then. She was trying to understand it, but she just couldn’t, even though she was reading the words out loud. She knew what the words meant, but it was hard to see why Mammy couldn’t do that kind of work at home, with them. Why she had to leave them all to go and help other people. Surely that wasn’t enough reason to leave your children?

‘
Please try not to blame me. One day, when you’re older, you’ll understand what can happen when love spoils, when it goes off, like sour milk
.’ The viciousness of it had always made June feel a bit sick – the idea of love ‘going off’ – like Daddy was a pint of milk with the top
left off. Oh, he was no angel, Daddy, but he had
stayed. ‘I miss you all so much, it feels as if my heart has been squeezed in a vice with the pain of it, but then I hope that, some day, you can forgive me
.’

Whenever June got to that bit, she always shook her head. No, Mammy, she thought. I can’t forgive you. ‘
You were always such a tough little girl, Junie. Much more so than Pius. You were twins, but it was as if you were two halves of the same person, the ying and yang’
– God, Mammy was still into that nonsense – ‘I
imagine he took it hard, and Mary-Pat, too, even though she’d never admit it. She’d bury it deep inside and let it eat away at her’
– Mammy had been right about that – ‘
but you, June, I think you’ll triumph. I never really knew what was going on inside your head, Junie, but I did know that you had some inner strength that would help you to pull through
.’ That bit was the most upsetting for June: the idea that she somehow didn’t feel it as much as the others.

‘
Do you think that you might write to me, Junie, and tell me about your lives, about what’s going on for you all? That way, I can feel I’m part of it, that even though I’m far away I’m still, somehow, in your lives. Does that make sense?
’ The first time she’d read this, June had sucked in a huge breath, holding it inside her chest. It took her a while to realise that she wasn’t breathing and she let it out then in a big rush. She knew, of course, that she’d say yes, that she’d agree to whatever her mother asked her to do. And that, by saying yes, her life would be stolen away from her, the life that she could have had.

And sure enough, that new hope she’d had for herself just went up in smoke with the burden of it, the weight of responsibility for keeping the secret. She’d kept up appearances, but it had cast a shadow over her whole life: Gerry, the births of the two girls, his success at Talk FM, the good times they’d had together, all of it. Oh, how she’d longed to break free of it; so many times she contemplated finishing it all, but she never could. What kind of a daughter would do that? Would spurn her own
mother? And so, once a month for the next twenty years, she’d pull her writing box out from under the bed and take out the lovely cream notepaper that Gerry had ordered for her from Smythson, and she’d sit down to compose her letter, nonsense about holidays in Portugal and Spain, about Mary-Pat and the kids, about PJ’s business and silly local gossip, carefully crafted lies to spare everyone’s feelings, hating herself as she put the words onto the paper. And she’d hand it to Maeve and a week or two later a letter would be sent back. And over these twenty years, not a word of the truth would be spoken by either of them.

It was a lifeline, the connection between them, June knew that. She knew that she was keeping something alive by writing to Mammy like this and by reading the letters that would be sent back via Maeve. But if it was, why did it make her feel so bad?

It had been coming for a long time, June thought that morning as she drove past Avoca Handweavers, thinking about the lunches she and the girls had enjoyed there, sharing those enormous plates of quiche – which June had avoided – and salad, a half-glass of Chardonnay so that she wouldn’t get pulled over on the way home. June hadn’t even realised it until she’d opened her mouth last night to tell Gerry that she was going to see Rosie today. ‘You’ll be gone in the morning,’ she’d said, tapping on his study door. ‘I’ll be back for dinner.’

He hadn’t even turned around, just looked up from his computer, throwing half a glance over his shoulder and waving an arm. ‘Have fun.’

I’m hardly going to ‘have fun’, June thought, as she passed the garage on the way into Monasterard, the lovely manor house that she’d dreamed of living in, the bridge over the river, then left towards the canal. I’m going to see how my sister’s doing and I’m going to try not to torture myself with guilt, if you call that ‘having fun’.

It was a blustery day, gusts of wind blowing a warm drizzle over the water, and June pulled the Land Rover up in the parking space just before the humpback bridge and watched the September rain fall. A mother duck and her nearly grown ducklings were marching up the towpath, she leading the way and they shuffling along behind, feathers ruffling in the wind. She seemed to know exactly where she was going, June thought, as they waddled along. She was in charge of her own destiny, Mother Duck. June thought for a few moments, then turned the key in the ignition again and drove slowly over the bridge.

Mary-Pat’s house was to the right, the little cul-de-sac behind the church, but June turned left instead. She drove down past the school before turning left again, bumping over the rutted narrow road that led to the garage. It had a sign with a Michelin Man on it hanging from the wall. June stopped the car and sat there for a few seconds before climbing down and walking out of the bright sunlight into the dim shade of the workshop, the smell of rubber and petrol filling her nostrils.

She stood by the door for a minute, taking in the grey-painted walls with the rows of tyres lined neatly along them, ‘Goodyear’ written above them, the tools arranged in order of size along magnetic strips above a large workbench, on which two order books were placed below a small filing cabinet, and a manual on Nissan Micras. He always had been neat, Dave. ‘A tidy workshop means a tidy mind,’ he was fond of saying. It was one of his more interesting quotes, but as she stood there, trying to adjust to the gloom after the brightness outside, June tried not to think about Dave’s limited command of the language, or his smoking habit, or the way he used to smell of diesel. Or to think about why she was there for the first time in twenty-five years. Why she’d come.

A radio was humming in the background, a murmur of chat and then a rising tone of indignation as the presenter held forth on the Troika. June realised that it was Gerry. She looked down at her watch – 11.30, he was nearly finished his show. She should have taken it as a sign, but instead she just ploughed on.